'Stamptacular Sunday "From the HEART!" Challenge' & HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ANGELA & MERRILYN!

This week’s challenge is going to be so much fun!  We can’t wait to see what you create!

This week's challenge is a…

“From the HEART!”

For this week's challenge you will create a card that has a sentiment as the MAIN FOCUS of your card.  The theme and colors are your choice!  Oh…and don’t forget to STAMP!  After all…we don’t call this the STAMPtacular Sunday Challenge for nothing!      

You will have from now until midnight (EST) February 16^th, 2012 to complete this challenge and post a DIRECT LINK to your submission into our InLinkz in order to be entered into the drawing for this week's fabulous prize donated by:

BUGABOO

PRIZE:  Winner’s Choice of 7 Digi Images!

Hey, that's another great prize, huh? Bugaboo has so many different images to choose from. Good luck!

Before I get to my card for the week, I have to send out birthday wishes. Both my daughter and my sister, Merrilyn, are celebrating birthdays today! So a very Happy Birthday to each of you!!! And many, many more! This is a most auspicious birthday for my sister as she turns 70 today. Hard to believe I have two sisters in their 70's now. Actually, a wee bit scary, too. It means that I am aging as well. Sigh...

Oh, and I asked my daughter how she felt about turning 41 after she was traumatized last year when she hit the big 4-O. And she replied something on the order of: 'It's one year closer to the grave.' Now, I ask you, is that any way for a youngster like her to feel? Good grief. What I wouldn't give for being 41 again--of course, it would have to be with our present financial situation and all my current worldly knowledge. OK, just stop your laughing. I am much smarter than I was at 41. For instance, I know now that when you are old, your mind is still young. So I understand the May-December romances. Not that I want one; I do have my sugar-daddy, after all. But I do understand why old people gravitate toward much younger people for romance. The old people still see themselves as young. In their own minds, of course. Until they look at photographs, which make them look like Methuselah. Of course, I would have no knowledge of that.

Again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Darling Daughter, and Super Sister! May your day be everything you wanted and more! I will call to sing to you. I know you just can hardly wait for that. (Wink.)

Now I will show all of you a few more photos of our trip before I get to my card. You may certainly skip to the card if you wish, and my feelings will not be hurt. Much.

So we left the Kilauea Lodge on Saturday morning after our yummy breakfast and drove to Hilo. We could have done a little side tour to Pahoa and other attractions in the southeast part of Hawaii, but decided against it. We had enough traveling to do for the day. Perhaps we'll check that out if we ever get back to the Big Island.

Anyway, I wanted to see the stone that King Kamehameha supposedly overturned in order to become king. It is called the Naha Stone and weighs nearly 7000 pounds. I don't know about you, but I have difficulty moving anything that weighs over 3000. Grams, that is. Which is in the neighborhood of 6 pounds. Seriously. Can you imagine overturning 7000 pounds? That's actually freaky-strong. I wonder if that legend is actually true?

The east side of Hawaii gets the rainfall that creates waterfalls. We stopped at a few and took photos, with the obligatory "people in front of" pictures. The first stop was at Rainbow Falls:

There was a path that went up to the top of the falls. We even climbed those stairs, which were a bit tricky. The area above was lush and green and I happened to spot a cardinal flitting from tree to tree. If you use your imagination, you can see him in the center of the following photo:

The next stop was Boiling Pots. They look fairly harmless in the photo, but I understand people die trying to go into them. What? Why? Because they're crazy? Yup.

The Pots are fed by the falls in the background below, called Pe'epe'e Falls.

The last falls we stopped at was Wai'ale Falls. We must have been getting bored by them, or something, because there are no peeps posed in front of them.

Of course, there are many more waterfalls to be seen, but they required hiking, and we were not prepared to do that on Saturday. So off we drove up the eastern coast. There is a small 4-mile scenic route that we decided to take on the way. This little road reminded us of the Road to Hana, though a lot less frightening to drive. We stopped along this route and got a few nice shots of some really rough sea. There was also a memorial tribute at that spot.Those tributes seem to be pretty common on this island.

We were going to stop at the Botanical Garden, but their tour took too long, so we headed back to the main highway and zipped north to Honoka'a. We took a potty break there at Tex Drive-In & Restaurant, and then treated ourselves to the most delicious, fresh-out-of-the-oven, melt-in-your-mouth malasadas we'd ever eaten. OMGoodness, those were good. I behaved myself and only had one, though I am sure I could have eaten at least three.

I really wanted to see the Waipi'o Valley while we were up in that area. My ever-accommodating driver obliged and we were very lucky to find a parking spot at the overlook outside of Kukuihaele. You can take a mule-driven wagon, horse, or a 4-wheel drive down into the Waipi'o Valley. But you aren't really welcomed there by the residents. We decided to satisfy ourselves with photos. It is an extraordinarily beautiful area that my pictures do no justice to.

Here's Gary walking down to the overlook. Aren't you just thrilled I showed you this one?   

And here are a few of my other photos of the area.

The last shot above is a closer view of the valley floor. And the one below is another memorial.

Well, that does it for photos until we got back to Kailua-Kona, so this is a good place to stop. And tell you about my card.

I have to say that after I finished the card and uploaded it, I was mighty unhappy. I really, really, didn't like the design. At the last minute I hurried and moved a couple of things, took another photo, deleted the first photo, and uploaded the second. All this yesterday before the challenge would go live. Now I am still not happy with this card, but I am much less unhappy. I think I have difficulty making a sentiment the star since I started using my Copics!

That said, I chose a couple of cool stamps from Create with TLC for the card. I lightened the bike collage and superimposed the sentiment on it. I printed this on X-Press It CS. Then I die-cut the image with a Spellbinders Decorative Labels 1 die. My CS is from Stampin' Up. I added several more die cuts to the card along with a bit of black netting, a button, a mini clothespin, and a Maya Road Little Birdies Trinket.

The other dies I used were: Cuttlebug Hearts & Stamps, Memory Box Grand Oak Tree, MB La Rue Heart, MB Twirled Heart Border, MB Vintage Bicycle, and Magnolia Doohickey Lovely Folded Heart Tag. Enough is enough already.

Do check out the lovely cards by my talented teammates. And I hope you will join us this week, and have a much better time of it than I did! Have a great week.

Once again, Happy Birthday to my DD and my wonderful sister!